This invention relates in general to electrographic reproduction apparatus, and more particularly to a compact console electrographic reproduction apparatus having ready access to the entire receiver sheet transport path for jam clearance, improved thermal management, and capability of performing automatic two-pass duplex copying or two-pass image overlay copying.
Electrographic reproduction apparatus presently available in the market place range from small personal copiers with a relatively low copy rate (e.g. 10 copies per minute) to duplicators with a substantially higher copy rate (e.g. in excess of 100 copies per minute). It can generally be said that as the copy rate increases, the size of the apparatus increases as does its complexity. Of course the larger, faster apparatus tend to incorporate added features such as multiple receiver sheet supplies, automatic duplex copying capabilities, or the ability to add image overlays to reproductions.
Such feature rich apparatus require proportionately more space than smaller apparatus in order to access their interior, for jam clearance for example, and to provide adequate thermal management (i.e., the ability to remove heat and airborne contaminants from various components to maintain a suitable temperature and air quality within the apparatus and its environment). Moreover, the ability to do both automatic duplex copying and add image overlays to reproductions has not typically been incorporated in a single reproduction apparatus. This is because the transport path for receiver sheets in making duplex copies requires a turn over for the sheets to present their opposite sides for duplex copying, while the transport path for receiver sheets in adding image overlays necessitates that the receiver sheets remain in the same facial orientation to the electrographic process station in order to place the image overlays on the same side thereof as the initial reproduction.